How can you remember student names?

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Quick Answer

Strategies for learning names quickly include eye contact, association, pre-viewing lists, name tags and repetition. Games are another way to remember names. It can be helpful for a teacher to quiz himself on names while students are working independently or to learn the names from a class list (if available) prior to school starting. Repeating names back to individuals or anytime you speak to them is also useful for remembering names in any context.

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TeacherVision suggests a strategy in which students can not enter the classroom until the teacher correctly says each of their names. If the teacher fails, that student receives bonus points.

Other suggestions from TeacherVision include games such as one in which students associate the first letter of their names with the first letter of items. Classmates and the teacher then guess who came up with each item. Such association can help everyone remember names, including the teacher.

This sort of association can be done internally, but you can also come up with your own associations and mentally affix that image to the person's face, according to Psychology Today. You can practice remembering names at home by attempting to remember names of celebrities seen on television and even tracking progress. Such practice can improve memory skills specifically related to the task of remembering names.